I've gotten my hands on a copy of SM&M+ after a long time of little to no modding, and decided to ease my way back into competency by modernising it, fixing the problems with the old version, and adding some extra features. Originally the Auton Overhaul was going to do this, but that mod would require lisp skills I do not have....so this will do instead. SM&M was a gem, and while the revised SM&M+ version was flawed, I can see how to make it wonderful again.

Current features:

-All the munitions from SM&M and SM&M+, of which about half have working graphical effects.
-Multiple game-breaking bugs (I'm not sure how this works)
-KM110 Starburst now has the armor-penetration perk. I'm not sure how well this will work out: it's an experiment. I can't actually find any outlines on how the armor-bonus actually works.

Planned changes:

-Fix broken graphical effects for remaining weapons
-Redo graphics using the new system to allow for more spectacular results.
-Delete Azriel launcher: merge effects into other launchers.
-Redesign Kytryn launcher (this may not work if I can't get a suitable explosion graphic) so it doesn't suck, remove the dated 0.9-era graphics, and make it ever so slightly less rare
-Make the little fragments that come away from large explosions pierce armor (experimental).
-Add some specialised shield/armor busting munitions

Mischievous local moderator. Usually a girl, occasionally undefinable, sometimes entertaining.

The XML is now fully functional. Placeholder effects for Azriel (which I'm rebranding as an EI launcher) look like they'll function until I can code up something better. Azriel is being reworked entirely in terms of niche....it's going to be a far more specialised weapon, designed for armor penetration (except the EMP round, obviously). This means that it will do more damage to heavy armor, but will need a primary weapon to help it get through shields. I've also added armor penetration to a few of the NAMI mines. To try to balance this, I'm dropping the regular damage on these weapons.

The old Messenger V antimatter weapon is being reworked as an experimental dual-purpose weapon. The initial radius fragment will do bonus damage to shields, while the sparkly antimatter fragments that come away from the blast will penetrate armor. This is purely experimental at this point.

Unfortunately, testing these changes has proven annoying due to bugs in 1.3 blocking my progress through the game. Anyone know where the latest G.O.D/DSF versions might be found?

Mischievous local moderator. Usually a girl, occasionally undefinable, sometimes entertaining.

Attached are the versions of GODMod used for debugging mods for the Succession, it contains patched versions of GODMod-classic and GODMod-git. They can be run simultaneously, and are both public domain.

So back in 2009/10 when I was making the original SM&M, I'd planned to fill in the gaps in the names (so an S1 and S2, and the M 1, 3 and 4). This was a decent enough idea at the time, but has had some drawbacks now.

The S1 was a 5-submunition blast version of the S3, and the S2 was a kinetic-spray version (based on the KM110/500). However when going over this stuff for SM&M++, I noticed that there really wasn't room for three of these missiles...however I tweaked them, there was always an overlap. As such, I've now killed off the S2 missile. The S1 now has buffed damage and a very pretty blast fragmentation effect based on the BlastExplosion1 virtual weapon. The S3 now has thermonuclear flares (like the current vanilla one), but has slightly tweaked visual effects to make it look nicer.

As well as being a thermonuclear weapon and carrying more munitions, the S3 has the major benefit of not being an Area-of-effect weapon. This means that if a clump of missiles hit something at the same time and the target is killed halfway through, the rest will keep going and automatically lock on to new targets. The S1 (and old S2) did not do this: If multiple missiles came within hit-detection range, they'd all explode at once and you'd just get overkill.

With the revision of the S1 into a better, more purposeful weapon and the removal of the S2, I think swarmbusting is well catered to. Once pricing is done, this set of munitions will be completely finished. I now need to handle the M-series weapons. I'm about a third of the way through them now.

Mischievous local moderator. Usually a girl, occasionally undefinable, sometimes entertaining.

-NAMI heavy launcher now fires missile at a uniform velocity of 45% C. This increases the speed of the main S-series missiles, and decreases the speed of the M-series. The S missile smay be slowed down again in future.

And introducing a new part of SM&M++, which may be spun off:Operation "Make the weapon sounds not suck"

It's a project to....well....make the weapon sounds not suck. I have been working in Audacity, screwing around with the handful of ancient sounds currently in the game. This has resulted in brand new sounds for the NAMI Heavy Launcher and all particle weapons. Currently I've got about a 50% success rate in modifying new sounds out of old ones, so I am confident that I can make even more sounds that will improve the feel of weapons. The altered missile-launch sound is a subtle change from the original, but feels a bit deeper. The new particle sound is entirely unique and feels very nice indeed, although it may grate with time. But it's a start. I hope that with time and practice I can do more elaborate sounds than what I'm currently creating.

Unfortunately, the current modding system means I can't just tell the game "play this sound when these weapons are fired". I will have to override Every. Single. Weapon. At least, every single weapon that uses the new sounds. This is likely to change in future (a lot of people have been asking for modular modding, and I've heard we may get it at some point), but in the meantime I am considering splitting this off from SM&M++ to reduce to already significant compatibility issues.

And yes, basically rewriting the whole of StandardWeapons.xml is going to suck, and take forever. So yeah. Don't expect a final product any time soon.

Mischievous local moderator. Usually a girl, occasionally undefinable, sometimes entertaining.

If you think StdWeapons.xml is going to suck, just wait until you start trying to find all the exotic stuff like the Penitent cannon or the Ares positron cannon. …And then go back through to figure out where the guts of the ICX and Longreach are. I don’t envy you this new project, heh.

if you can provide good sounds to George on his terms they'll probably show up in future versions of the game.

I reckon that remixes of the vanilla sounds are good candidates, but first of all, I wanna hear them!

Um..where is the quote from? I'd certainly be willing to make some sounds for the vanilla game, but there's probably better candidates than me out there.

I'll see about releasing a basic "here's some sounds" pack soon as a trial. Currently it only overrides a few weapons: the TeV9 family, the two Ares ion guns, the katana, and the particle-beam family (single, dual, shuriken). I'd do the NAMI heavy as well, but that's in pieces right now while I work on SM&M++. It will also only have two new sounds, but that's a good start.

Mischievous local moderator. Usually a girl, occasionally undefinable, sometimes entertaining.

It's something I said on IRC. I don't speak for George so it's just a third party prediction about how he'd respond, but I like to think it's not too outlandish. The "on his terms" part is key, though. I don't know what license he'd want the sounds under or what they'd have to be under as modifications of the original sounds.